First of all, if you are cruising during this time you need to be flexible. Itineraries and protocols change regularly. We are experienced cruisers (10+) in our early 40s with a 6 year old. This was our first time on HA but one of our best cruises yet. We picked HAL because of its fairly strict Covid measures (almost no vax exemptions, masking, testing etc). We originally booked a balcony on deck 7 but we took an upgrade to a signature suite about 10 days before for $200 per adult (this was the second upgrade offer we got- a month before we got one for about $300 per person but it came down closer to the cruise). Also about two weeks before they changed the itinerary- swapping Nassau for Key West on the last day.

Embarkation was a breeze. After dropping your bags, you were escorted to a desk to show your vaccine and testing documents. They took an pdf copy of the test results I saved from walgreens on my phone - we didn’t have a printer enroute. This took less than five minutes. After that you went through security and to a digital kiosk which scanned your passport and took your picture. No lines for anything and we are on the ship in less than 15 minutes. We were told this ship sailed with about 1,000 guests - or about 45% of double occupancy and it was noticeable throughout the week even though crew numbers were down as well.

The cruise itself was wonderful. The staff was great, and we had very few issues. There were some minor things where crew shortage (or just not having the right people in the right spots) were noticeable. For example this was the first sailing of this ship with any significant number of 5-11 year olds (they didn’t have the vaccine prior to December and this ship had been on a number of charter sailings in January and early February) and Club HAL was really being staffed by repurposed entertainment staff and not dedicated child care staff. With that being said there was 35 kids on this sailing and about a dozen of them regularly participated and Davis and the staff did a great job occupying them. We noticed a shortage of wait and bartenders on the main lido during port days (we got off only in amber cove). Read more